


Losing Game

by AshAndSnow



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, but they both work on them, they both have issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 23:38:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18883630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshAndSnow/pseuds/AshAndSnow
Summary: If Tony'd known what he is about to enter into, he'd have run as fast as he could. Maybe it's a very good thing, then, that he doesn't.Or:A college AU in which Tony and Loki are in an on-off relationship because they've got issues. It has a better ending than you'd think.





	Losing Game

**Author's Note:**

> This was loosely inspired by Eurovision, believe it or not. A handful of us were kind of watching it together and talking about it on Discord. And when nobody wrote me a fic based on my ideas within .3 seconds of me mentioning them (the nerve), I figured I’d have to write it myself. Enjoy!

“Have you been introduced to Loki yet?”

It starts that innocently, that innocuously.

Had Tony known what would come of that, he’d have run as fast as his feet could carry him.

Not that he regrets a single thing by the end of it. But so much has to happen for him to get there. And the Tony that offers the green eyes and long legs in front of him a borderline flirtacious smile right now, right in this moment, unwittingly about to step onto a rollercoaster ride of a lifetime, he is not the same Tony that will eventually step back off.

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, no. I’d have remembered you.”

Loki’s answering smirk draws Tony in. Hook, line, sinker. He doesn’t know it yet, but that smile dooms him.

*

It’s surprisingly easy to befriend Loki.

Not that Tony has issues making friends. At least not the superficial kind. But genuine connection, that’s something else entirely. Whenever Tony’s mentally stripped his life to the bare necessities, the most meaningful of relationships, he can never tell if he is surprised or not by how lonely that leaves him.

Loki seems to be the same. He slots seamlessly into Tony’s group of friends, but it is also clear that part of the reason for that is Thor. Loki would never have made friends with any of them on his own.

Except, perhaps, for Tony.

Because Loki is so sharp, so witty, so smart. But so is Tony. And Tony isn’t one to flatter himself (only superficially, when others can hear him, or he’s feeling so vulnerable that he has to keep up the façade even to himself), but there is no denying that he matches Loki step for step.

Everytime they’re around each other, it’s magnetic, it’s a game of chess, it’s exhilaration and belonging. It’s everything Tony ever wanted.

*

“You’re not serious.”

But of course he is.

“Scared?” Loki’s grin is sharp but it never ever cuts Tony. It’s only ever going to be how soft Loki looks when he breaks that is actually going to hurt him.

That has yet to come.

Tony glances at the Dance Dance Revolution machine in front of him, then back at Loki.

He’s never been one to resist a bit of friendly competition, and the dare and twinkle in Loki’s eyes doesn’t even know the effect it has on him. Is he ever going to tell Loki no when he looks at him like that?

“You’re on,” Tony agrees, and the way Loki brightens in delight ensures he is not going to regret it. Not even when one goddamn Clint Barton captures him losing spectacularly on video and makes sure everyone on campus has seen it within a week.

“Sore loser,” Loki later accuses him after Tony’s been indulging in some good-natured whining, tugging at a tuft of the candyfloss Tony was ‘forced’ to buy him for losing.

“Am not.”

It comes out a bit more petulant than expected. In response, Loki gifts Tony with the first laugh he has ever heard him utter. 

That’s the first time Tony cannot deny his urge to kiss him.

*

Tony isn’t out of the closet yet.

Which is to say, he’s not ashamed of his bisexuality. But he knows that there are certain things that the world, that his parents, that Stark Industries expects of him. This includes eventually marrying a beautiful woman and pass on the Stark Genius to another generation of children with brown eyes who will pay their own price for being born into wealth and fame and expectation.

Loki is everything he wants and everything he should not pursue.

As if Tony needed another reason to be kept up at night.

*

“I’m so drunk,” Loki moans, and Tony has to laugh.

“Are you? I wasn’t aware,” he teases, adjusting the arm he has around the lanky young man at his side, the better to support him.

“I’m so, so drunk,” Loki repeats and, ignoring Tony’s laugh, he pulls away to sit on the curb. “I’m never going to be sober again.”

Tony sits down next to him, bumping their shoulders gently together. “That’s okay. I’ll take care of you. And be drunk with you. I can do both at once, I’m a genius.”

Loki snorts. But the amusement only lasts for a moment, and then his expression turns despondent.

“You can’t say that to me,” he says, his quiet voice managing to sound both like a demand and a plea. “You can’t say that.”

Tony frowns. “Why not?”

Loki leans backwards, supported by his hands on the pavement, and he tips his head upwards, eyes closed. Tony can tell he’s trying to hide in plain sight. “Because it makes me want you even more. And I’m too much of a mess for you. I’m too much of a mess for you.”

To say that Tony’s taken aback by this would be an understatement. And there’s far too much for him to unpack at all at once.

He decides he has to start somewhere.

“What?” he asks surprised. “You want me?”

Even though Loki doesn’t move, Tony can tell he is internally rolling his eyes at him. “Yes.”

A beat passes, Tony sitting in stunned silence. Then Loki sighs and opens his eyes. He doesn’t look at Tony, though, instead training his gaze on something in the distance. “You’re always on the verge of spilling your drink because you get too excited to mind your gestures. You’re never on time. Some of your habits would drive up the fucking wall if it weren’t for the fact that it’s you, not anyone else.”

Finally, Loki looks at Tony. “I’m head over heels for you,” he admits. “And I’m so, so screwed up and twisted and _wrong_. I could never be right for you.”

Tony knows that if he had a lifetime to do it, he could never fathom a method quick and efficient and all-encompassing enough for his liking to let Loki know just how utterly not right any of that is. He is suddenly overcome with the overwhelming urge to make everything okay, to throw himself at Loki’s feet, to show him just how wanted and brokenly perfect he is. He wants to do something about this so badly, and he’s helpless with how none of it will be enough.

Without further thought, without realizing he is doing it, he leans in and kisses Loki. Soft and tender and exactly how he’s wanted to kiss him countless times before.

He doesn’t even get a chance to wonder if this was a smart move before Loki’s hands are in his hair, erasing all capability of coherent thought for a little while.

*

It doesn’t go any further that night. They spend a while on that curb, kissing and laughing and talking, until the night grows old and they find themselves drifting home.

The next morning, Tony briefly wonders how this is going to turn out. Wil things be awkward, will Loki take last night back, will he have to make any changes he is not ready for.

But within the hour, he sees he needn’t have worried. Things are better than ever, Loki seems happy, and Tony’s happy with this new little secret they are sharing together.

He is happy. Things are right where he wants them to be for now.

*

“Fuck,” Loki gasps, and it’s the best thing Tony’s heard all night.

They’re still not public. Neither of them is ready to come out, Loki because he’s got issues with his family (issues Tony tries to prod at but rarely learns anything of use about) and Tony because he isn’t yet ready to face the consequences of coming out of the closet.

That doesn’t mean they can’t hook up in the bathroom at Natasha’s Halloween party.

“That’s the plan,” Tony readily agrees, crowding Loki against the wall. Loki’s left legs is already wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer, hands eagerly pulling and tearing and gripping at clothes.

“Smartmouth,” Loki accuses. Tony doesn’t get the chance to reply before he’s caught in a kiss, so frantic and passionate and mindmeltingly hot that his bones nearly turn to gel.

It’s nearly always like this. The desperate need for more, more, moremoremore, for the scratch of nails and and beard, the burning desire lighting them both up from the inside until it surely feels like they’re shining so brightly as to be seen from the moon.

It’s addictive and incredible and unlike anything Tony’s ever had with anyone else.

He feels long fingers wrap around him, around them both, and he forgets how to think until long after they’ve toppled over the edge together and they’ve wound up on the floor, panting and kissing and still wanting more.

It doesn’t feel like he’ll ever get enough.

*

For a while, Tony is floating on a cloud.

He’s never been happier than he is with Loki. And even the smallest thing can make him smile, can brighten his day, as long as it’s related to Loki.

He loves the way Loki goes through apples like he’s a goddamn horse but will consume lollipops by the dozen when he’s anxious or nervous.

He loves the way Loki swears in his mothertongue, but it doesn’t sound the same when he stubs his toe as it does when he’s coming undone under Tony’s touch.

He loves the way Loki’s taken to feeding the magpies because he’s read that they can be befriended, and Loki is theatrical enough to want a bird for a sidekick.

He loves, he loves, he loves.

Oh, he loves.

*

It doesn’t last.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Tony shouts. They’re fighting, as they’ve often done for the past week. He’s decided against thinking too much about it. Every relationship has rough patches. Every couple fights sometimes.

“Exactly what I said,” Loki shouts back. “It’s over. It’s done.”

Just like that, Tony’s single.

Of course, there’s more to the fight than this. But once he’s recovered from the hangover he has earned himself by getting blackout drunk, it’s all he remembers.

Loki broke up with him. What does the rest of it matter?

*

It takes exactly one week for them to get back together, and it’s the start of a repetitive, soulsucking cycle.

It’s not that they don’t want to be together. Because they’re both so ridiculously in love that half of it would do.

It’s that Tony is too caught up in what’s expected of him to allow himself to simply be happy with what he really wants. And it’s that Loki’s family life has left him so full of issues that he does not know how to allow good things for too long at a time.

And so it goes.

They get back together. They’re deliriously, secretly happy for a while. One of them picks a fight. It’s over.

During one break, after a particularly nasty fight, he tries to date Pepper for a while. She’s sweet and pretty and patient, she’s smart and competent and not Loki.

But of course it doesn’t go well. At this point, Loki and Tony are an open secret among their friends, and it doesn’t take long for Loki to sniff out what’s going on.

It winds up in a screaming match, which turns into violent kissing, which turns into claiming each other on Tony’s kitchen floor. 

Less than 24 hours later, Tony’s broken up with a kind and understanding Pepper, and he’s back in Loki’s arms.

*

“Do you think some things are written in the stars?” Loki asks him one night.

They’re lying on the roof of a cabin Tony’s rented for them for the weekend, watching the stars. They’ve only just arrived earlier that day, and Tony thinks he will never forget the way Loki’s hair was whipped around by the wind as they drove here, his eyes closed, face turned to the sky as he sang along to the radio at the top of his lungs.

Loki’s question tears him from that memory, and he turns his head to look at Loki. He looks paler than usual in the moonlight. Tony falls a little more in love. “Like what?”

Loki shrugs. His gaze remains fixed where it is. “Anything. Love. History. Fate.”

Normally, Tony’s a man of science and logic. He’d say no, say humans have free will, that anything is possible at the hands of humans alone.

But looking at Loki, in this moment, it’s hard to fathom that there is no greater power out there. He doesn’t believe in God, any god, but maybe the universe itself has pushed him and Loki together, has had a say in the creation of this divine creature beside him and the immeasurable luck that landed him in Tony’s life, arms, and heart.

The answer he settles on is “sometimes.”

Something in his voice makes Loki look at him. Tony doesn’t know what he heard or what he sees, but whatever it is makes Loki soften.

Loki’s fingers feel soft, like home and fate and unbelievable coincidence as they gently stroke his cheek.

“Me too.”

*

Eventually, it becomes too much for Tony.

“No,” he tells Loki, in the midst of yet another fight, yet another threat to break up. “If you’re leaving me this time, this is it. That’s fucking it. I can’t take this anymore.”

His heart, he thinks, can only break so many times. He can only keep crying so much over this. He can inly endure this for so long.

He doesn’t say it, but he knows his face does. He is sick and tired of this, he is so far past able to handle it. 

Loki looks at him for a long time, debating with himself.

Then he grabs his coat and leaves.

*

They’re both miserable.

Tony knows it’s not just him, even if he hasn’t seen Loki lately, isn’t deaf to the others talking about it. And there’s nothing he wants more than to run to Loki, make up, make things right.

He stands firm. The pattern of their relationship was nothing less than killing them both slowly, and he’ll only make it worse and prolong the pain if he returns.

Tony comes out to Jarvis first. Then his friends, Rhodey first, of course. Then his mother.

They all take it well, as he had known it would, and his mother helps him face his father.

Howard doesn’t love that his son is bisexual, doesn’t take it nearly as well. But he hasn’t disinherited Tony, hasn’t cut him off, hasn’t done anything of serious consequence.

He’s not out to the media, but that’s okay. He doesn’t owe the press anything.

*

Six months pass since their breakup, and somehow Tony doesn’t see Loki once.

Until he does.

It’s just a brief sighting. Tony’s entering a café to get a cup of coffee to go. While he’s waiting, he spots Loki in the corner.

Like it’s a goddamn movie, he winds up staring at Loki for a few seconds before the man he hasn’t stopped loving looks up, and their eyes lock.

Something Tony doesn’t know how to name passes between them. It’s not necessarily bad, but it is rather unsettling.

He cannot stop thinking about it, and later that night, his resolve crumbles and he texts Loki.

*

It becomes the start of something good.

Loki texts back, and for a week, they text non-stop.

Loki tells him that he’s started therapy a few months ago and that he’s doing better, that his relationship with his family and with himself is better. Tony in turn tells him that he’s come out, that his family situation is simultaneously better and worse because Howard’s still displeased but Tony’s finally stopped hiding and has been able to let go of a weight holding him down.

After that first week, they start calling each other at night. After a month, they start hanging out with their friends at the same time again.

Months pass, and things continue to be good. Loki’s improving, Tony’s doing better. They’re good friends again.

And even a blind man could see the deep feelings the two of them still feel for each other.

*

Summer rolls around. It’s been just about three years since that first meeting, and today it’s Steve’s birthday. An occasion that’s being celebrated with a trip to a lake house for their entire group of friends.

The party is going on merrily inside, but Tony’s spotted Loki step outside a few minutes ago, and he’s finally gathered the courage to follow him.

It’s a gorgeous night. The moon is bright, the stars are littering the sky, the lake in front of them is completely still. Loki cuts a striking figure, leaning on the railing the way he does. He looks at Tony, calm and unsurprised.

Of course he knew Tony’d follow.

“Hey,” Tony tells him softly.

“Hi,” Loki tells him back.

A few seconds pass. It should have been awkward, but it’s not.

Eventually, Loki speaks up, gets straight to the point. They both know this is what is coming tonight.

“I’d like to try again.”

Tony nods. He waits for Loki to say anything else, but when that doesn’t happen, he has to sigh, step up to join him by the railing, and address what needs to be addressed himself.

“I can’t do it the way we did before,” he tells Loki. “No more threatening each other. No more breaking up out of fear. None of that utter bullshit we used to do.”

It was both their faults. They both repeatedly screwed up, both of them are guilty of perpetuating the cycle. And Tony knows they are both better now, but it needs to be said anyway.

“If we try again, this is it,” Tony says, and he looks up to catch Loki’s gaze. It’s full of stars, and Tony feels hope swell within him; even as he tampers it down just long enough to say his piece. “This is our last try. It’s now or never.”

Loki nods. “I know.”

When they kiss, that too is full of stars.

*

Six years later, they’re back at that cabin. A party is going on again, but for entirely different reasons.

This time, it’s been set up outside, and a soft song is currently playing, the moonlight and the grass all that makes the dancefloor.

Loki takes Tony’s hand and rests the other on his waist. Tony slides his own up onto Loki’s shoulder.

“Stop staring and dance with me, mr. Stark,” Loki playfully tells Tony.

Tony grins up at him as they sway to the beat of the song, their song, picked especially for the occasion.

“Whatever you wish, mr. Stark.”


End file.
